Communication is Complex. Definitions, Types and Problems

Table of Contents

Introduction

Definitions of Key Terms

The communication cycle

Types of Communication

Nonverbal communication
Facial expressions
Eye contact
Posture and body orientation
Gestures
Vocals

The problems or barriers to communication
Noise and in the communication channel
Misunderstanding due to technical jargon
Omission or information overload
Non- verbal signals confusing the recipient
Perceptual selection
Failure to seek or offer feedback
Failure to plan for communication

Conclusion

Reference

Introduction

Communication is essentially a discipline concerned with the exchange and flow of information and ideas from one person to another. Distilled to its bare essentials communication involves a sender transmitting an idea, information, or feeling to a receiver who is able to understand what has been communicated^[1]. Effective communication thus occurs only when the receiver understands the exact information or idea that the sender intended to convey. Thus communication as a discipline seeks to understand the impact of messages on human behavior and in the contest of this paper emphasis is human behavior within an organizational setting^[2]. Communication as a discipline includes the study of communication in interpersonal relationships, groups and organizations. There is no denying that communication is a complex discipline as it involves the study of how a sender encodes information to be transmitted, how a receiver decodes received data, barriers to communication which are the influences in the environment that affect the whole process of how information is communicated. This paper seeks to examine the complex discipline of communication focusing on the communication cycle, nonverbal communication and the barriers that hinder effective communication within an organizational setting.

Definitions of Key Terms

Communication: Any process in which people share information, ideas and feelings^[3]

Channel: The root travelled by a message, the means it uses to reach the sender-receivers.^[4]

Culture: the ever changing values, traditions, social and political relationships and world view created and shared by a group of people bound together by a combination of factors.^[5]

Dialect: the habitual language of a community^[6]

Emotional Intelligence: the ability to understand and get along with others^[7]

Ethics: a matter of conforming to acceptable and fair standards of conduct^[8]

Family: two or more individuals who are joined together at a particular point in time through the biological or sociological means of genetics, marriage or adoption^[9]

Internal Noise: interference with the message that occurs in the minds of sender receivers when their thoughts or feelings are focused on something other than the communication at hand^[10]

Internet: a group of computer networks connected to each other^[11]

Interpersonal Communication: one person interacting with another on a one to one basis, often in an informal unstructured setting^[12]

Listening: Hearing and responding to given information, both intellectually and emotionally^[13]

Message: the ideas and feelings that a sender receiver wants to share^[14]

Noise: interference that keeps a message from being understood or accurately interpreted^[15]

Nonverbal Communication: anything communicated without words^[16]

Norms: Expectations that group members have of how other members will behave, think, and participate^[17]

Style: the result of the way we select and arrange words and sentences^[18]

Values: a type of belief about how we should behave or about some final goal that may or may not be worth attaining.^[19]

The communication cycle

An examination of communication as a discipline cannot be possible without understanding the communication cycle which provides hindsight into the communication process. Broadly conceptualized, the communication cycle depicts the complexity of communication as a discipline^[20]. The different elements of the communication cycle have to interact and interface in a way that will result in effective communication. Effective communication occurs when the sender elicits the envisaged responses from the receiver through the message send. The flow of information from the sender to the receiver is highly complex and it requires a detailed examination.

The communication cycle traces the flow of information from the source (the sender), the medium used to transmit the information to the receiver who has to decode the message to get meaning of what the sender want^[21]. In the communication cycle the sender is very important as the source of the information. The sender has to encode whatever information that has to be transmitted to the receiver. Encoding refers to the process of expressing information in symbols or expressions that are going to be understood by the receiver. Usually encoding can be in the form of written statements or the spoken words. The golden rule of encoding is that the sender has to produce information to be transmitted in an unambiguous way to guard against unwanted responses from the receiver and to enable the receiver to understand what the sender originally wants from the receiver.

After the encoding process comes the desired product the message. A message is the actual physical product which has to be conveyed to the receiver. There are two parts to a message these are the content and context^[22]. The content of a message are the actual words or symbols of the message which are commonly referred as the language. It is the content of the message that has the potential to generate misunderstandings as words can be interpreted differently by different people. Thus care has to be taken by the sender to encode a message with words and symbols that will not be misconstrued by the receiver. The context of the message is also a critical element of a message. Context covers the paralanguage which are the nonverbal gestures which reinforce the content of a message^[23]. The context of a message signals whether urgency or immediate responses are required. Failure by the receiver to understand the context of a message creates problems of misunderstanding.

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^[1] Badar ,G,2010:2

^[2] Pearson, J, 1983:7

^[3] Saundra Hybels & Richard L. Weaver II 2004: 7

^[4] Ibid: 11

^[5] Ibid: 66

^[6] Ibid: 153

^[7] Ibid: 212

^[8] Ibid: 641

^[9] Ibid: 239

^[10] Ibid: 12

^[11] Ibid: 459

^[12] Ibid: 20

^[13] Ibid: 102

^[14] Ibid: 9

^[15] Ibid: 12

^[16] Ibid: 170

^[17] Ibid: 351

^[18] Ibid: 149

^[19] Ibid: 612

^[20] Fielding. M, 2009:15

^[21] Ibid

^[22] Rogers, E. M., and Rekha A, 1976:5

^[23] Ibid